JACK SPRAT PRESS

I have a four page story called "You've Been (Cyber) Punked!" online over at the Jack Sprat Press website.

You can read the whole thing for free now by clicking here.

FRED EGG COMICS END OF YEAR REVIEW 2015

On this last day of the year, I thought I'd take stock of what I've been up to comics wise throughout 2015.

In January, I had a story published in D.Blake Werts' US zine Copy This! #11 called 'Why it's Good to Feel Pain'.

I took part in an interesting series of articles that ran over at Broken Frontier in January, February, June and July. This was Andy Oliver's State of the Small Press Nation.

March saw the release of Treehouse #5 and featured two of my comics; 'The Martians: To Them and Not to Us, Perhaps, is the Future Ordained...' and 'I Don't Give a Fuck' (the former drawn by Neil Paterson). I did a reading of both stories at the Scottish Comics Unconference in Glasgow, arranged by Damon Herd and Hattie Kennedy.

Photo: Damon Herd

Then a week later, I did a talk on the topic 'My Favourite Comics Page' at Chris Murray and Phillip Vaughan's 'Comics, So What?' event at the University of Dundee.

In the wee small hours of the 19^th April, I finished inking the last page of my story 'Dump'. A notable event for me as I'd been working on the comic for many years.

In May, I had a story called 'Visitor' published in Keara Stewart's A Bit of Undigested Potato.  

On the last day of the month, I released the third and final issue of Dump.

In June, Treehouse #6 was published, containing three stories by me; 'Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds: an Introduction', 'Bruce the Rat in One Adventure Too Many', and 'Junior Scrabbl'.

I also put together the Fred Egg Comics website.

My story “Why, Waltzer Man?' went online over at Adventures in Comics.

I had a comic named 'The Ascent of Man' on display at the Tin Roof Summer Exhibition in Dundee.

Redbird Review ran a Treehouse Comics interview that I took part in, and a solo interview with myself too.

In July, my review of Gary Hoppenstand's 'Critical Insights: The Graphic Novel' was published in Reference Reviews Vol.29 #5, and The International Journal of  Comic Art Vol.17 #1 published my review of Dundee Comics Day.  

I did a colour comic called 'No Greater Love' for the Guardian #opencomics.

In August, Gary Clap and Kirk Campbell's Dirty Rotten Comics #5 included my story entitled 'Tiddlywinks'.

The first issue of Emily White's Jack Sprat Magazine was released in September. In it was a comic I did called 'Silently Falling', inspired by the title of a song by Chris Squire, who sadly died this year.

In October, I did a talk at the Make/Share event at the MakerSpace in the Vision building, Dundee about my comics, focussing on the four most recent ones I'd done; 'No Greater Love', 'Tiddlywinks', 'Silently Falling' and 'A Book with Death in the Title'.

This last story was included in Treehouse #7. along with another called 'Marriage Statistics', and a cover by me too.

Redbird Review ran the first part of my new 56 page story called Bell Time. I'll complete a new page every 3 weeks.

I curated a Treehouse Comics exhibition that ran for a month and a half at Arbroath Library. I also gave a talk on Super-Hero comics to a book group for 8-11 year olds there.

In November, I did a comic called 'Frankensteins', and read it at the Frankenstein Begins comic launch event at the McManus Galleries in Dundee.

It's been a good and busy year for me in comics. I have every intention for 2016 to be the same. Some plans are in motion right now. I'll be continuing Bell Time. I've been working on a comics project with my two sons, which has been great fun. I'm putting together my next comic Zero Sum Bubblegum (which will include guest artists – some returning, some new – all great!) I want to do a collected edition of Berserkotron, too. My involvement with Treehouse Comics is always a pleasure, and the next edition's comics by me are in the can. I'm also appearing in the next issue of Copy This!

Get yourself involved in things you want to do. It's worth the effort and hard work.

Have a great new year. 

MAKE / SHARE

Photo pinched from @Creative_Dundee

I took part in Creative Dundee’s monthly event Make/Share last Wednesday. It's an open call to anyone making things to come and talk about what they’re doing.

It’s held at the MakerSpace in the Vision building at Dundee’s waterfront. I knew I was one of three speakers, and as it runs 7-8.30pm, I had about half an hour.

There was a limit on how many images you could take along – 4 or 5 in total, which was perhaps a more problematic number to someone doing comics rather than other creative endeavours, what with the emphasis being on sequential storytelling. But no matter, I decided to show a page each from the 4 most recent comics I’ve put out: “No Greater Love” at the Guardian #opencomics page, “Tiddlywinks” in Dirty Rotten Comics #5, “Silently Falling” in Jack Sprat #1; and “A Book with Death in the Title” from the forthcoming Treehouse #7.

What was interesting was not knowing the extent to which the audience was familiar with comics. In one respect, I can talk about comics minutiae forever, but how to structure a half hour talk to people who maybe have no prior interest? A brief intro about how I came to start doing comics and then the background to each of the 4 stories was the way I went.

It’s always great to hear people’s interpretations of my stories. An intriguing one for "No Greater Love" came on this night, in which the mother had died after giving birth and the father was now left alone. Because the story is told in images, there is a lot of room for interpretation, and I found this take fascinating.

The MakerSpace studio is filled with creative people with an interest in technology. Another of last night’s speakers was Grant Richmond, who had taken an old radio, gutted it like a fish and refilled it with modern electronics, replacing the speakers and enabling it with wi-fi. Impressive, and he still hasn’t finished tinkering with it. The other speaker Andrew Kieran, has an enormous weaving machine onsite that he has transported around Britain. It too had a technological aspect – one of his woven articles has a mobile code as part of the pattern.

I enjoyed shoehorning self-published comics into the creative arts arena last night. A really fun evening.

JACK SPRAT #1 at BOOKS & BROOMSTICKS

Belle Whittington has reviewed Jack Sprat #1 over at Books & Broomsticks, and included a preview of my story, "Silently Falling".

Have a look here.

JACK SPRAT #1 at LE SENTIER DES MORTS

Jack Sprat #1 has been reviewed over at Les Sentier des Morts, with the following missive:

"J’ai particulièrement été touchée par les bandes graphiques de David Robertson. Pas par le design mais par le texte. Il n’y en a pas beaucoup mais l’atmosphère qui en ressort est triste. On se dit qu’on est petit face à l’univers et qu’il suffit de peu de choses pour qu’une vie parte dans une direction. Quand j’ai fini cette histoire, je l’ai relue plusieurs fois pour voir si je ne ratais pas quelque chose, un indice, n’importe quoi qui puisse me faire espérer une autre fin."

It's a first for me, being reviewed in French!

Have a look at the full article here.

JACK SPRAT #1

This is the cover to the new magazine Jack Sprat, edited by Emily White, and featuring a mixture of comics, flash fiction and artwork by Silvia Carrus, Victoria Caswell, David Duke, C.E. Lamb, Louis Netter, Slake Saunders, and Jonathan Scott.

I've a four page comic story in there called "Silently Falling".

The entire issue can be downloaded free at the Jack Sprat Press website. Go have a look here.